The National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers (NAFBPO) extracts and condenses the material that follows from Mexican, Central and South American and U.S. on-line media sources on a daily basis. You are free to disseminate this information, but we request that you do so in its entirety, as written, and credit NAFBPO (nafbpo.org) as being the provider.

The M3 Report seeks to provide information which its readers find useful and interesting. With that in mind, please consider leaving Comments at the end of each post. Readers can also e-mail us at:​

A. Ferguson, Editor​

===========================================

CAUTIONThere MAY BE VERY graphic photographs that accompany some articles in the body of this report. It is not our intention to sensationalize. We include these photos in order to give to you, the American public, a clearer understanding of the seriousness of the situation in Mexico and Central America.​

**Asterisk denotes death involving a police officer or a member of the military serving in that capacity. Some items may be from notirex.com, lapoliciaca.com or historiasdelnarco.com. Some incidents of violence may not be included here due to the large number of death reports.

MAGDALENA, JALISCO***

On Wednesday, a shootout between municipal police and Zeta gunmen left Police Chief Raul Hinojosa and two officers dead, and 6 bad guys killed. Responding Mexican military and state police tried to locate the gunmen that escaped, with success. On May 21st, the former chief was gunned down in Guadalajara.

ZAPOPAN, JALISCO

Gunmen attacked a group of people cutting corn, leaving 3 dead and 2 wounded. Paramedics reported the injured to be in very grave condition. The municipal police chief said as many as 30 gunmen in 6 vehicles showed up at around 6 pm and opened fire.

Zetas splittin' into factions...Mexico's Zetas drug gang split raises bloodshed fears11 September 2012 - The survivor's tale reinforced reports of a split within the ranks of the Zetas

It was an extraordinary tale of escape. Last month, a man managed to survive a massacre in Mexico by playing dead. He hid under the bodies of 14 other people shot and dumped in a minivan which the attackers then drove towards the city of San Luis Potosi. He made his escape when the vehicle full of corpses stopped for petrol. But it soon became clear the survivor was no random victim. Rather, he was a member of the same organisation that had attacked him, the feared and violent Los Zetas criminal network. It confirmed a troubling rumour in Mexico: that Los Zetas have split into two and the rival factions are now fighting each other.

Los Zetas started life in the late 1990s as enforcers for the Gulf Cartel. Tasked with protecting the cartel's drug-trafficking empire, the Zetas were primarily comprised of defectors from an elite unit of the Mexican army called El Gafe. By 2005, they had broken away from their paymasters and started to run criminal enterprises themselves. Now, it seems the group has split again, this time internally. One faction is led by one of the founders of Los Zetas, a former Gafe officer called Heriberto Lazcano, alias "El Lazca" or "Z-3". The other is led by Miguel Angel Trevino, known as "Z-40", a former member of the Gulf Cartel who is thought to be responsible for some of the most heinous and bloodthirsty crimes committed by the Zetas.

Mexico's Attorney General Marisela Morales recently confirmed that reports from government intelligence sources indicated that the Zetas were now at war with themselves. Such groups inevitably begin to "break up and start to divide", she said, calling the split "an important factor in the increase in violence" in northern states such as San Luis Potosi, Coahuila and Zacatecas. Some local crime reporters have pointed to recent "narco-mantas" - banners put up in public places by drug gangs - accusing Heriberto Lazcano of betrayal as further proof of the split. But despite the circumstantial nature of such evidence, most experts on the organisation agree that the rupture is real. "I'm convinced that it's true," says George Grayson, co-author of All the Executioner's Men, a book about Los Zetas. "Lazca and Z-40 are actually quite different. They seldom met, maybe just once a month. They communicated by cellphones which they then threw away after each conversation."

The two men inhabit different parts of the country, says Dr Grayson, and beyond their criminal partnership have little in common. "Their common interests were fast cars, fast horses, fast women, fancy guns and hunting exotic beasts on a hunting reserve in Coahuila." Of the two, Miguel Angel Trevino has the more fearsome reputation. "Not that El Lazca is a saint, but Z-40 seems to get his basic enjoyment by committing the most incredibly sadistic acts," says Dr Grayson. It was Z-40, for example, who is alleged to have been responsible for one of the most gruesome episodes in Mexico's drug war, when 72 people were tortured, raped and murdered on a ranch in San Fernando in Tamaulipas.

More murder in Mexico...17 bodies found along Mexican roadSept. 16,`12 (UPI) -- Seventeen mutilated bodies were found along a road in west-central Mexico's Jalisco state, authorities said Sunday.

No one had claimed responsibility for the slayings, the Organizacion Editorial Mexicana reported.

Witnesses said they saw men in two black trucks stop and unload boxes containing the bodies along the highway to Morelia. Police determined they were the bodies of 17 young men who had been shot to death and dismembered, the news service said.

The newspaper El Universal reported the remains would be sent to the Jalisco Institute of Forensic Sciences for identification.

Another one bites the dust...Heriberto Lazcano: The fall of a Mexican drug lord13 October 2012 - Heriberto Lazcano, the leader of Los Zetas, one of the Mexico's most feared and brutal drugs gangs, was killed this week in a shoot-out with the Mexican marines. This news was not a major surprise to Mexico-watchers - but then something strange happened.

The life of a drug lord is generally pretty short. The world's most notorious was probably "El Patron" - the Colombian cocaine baron, Pablo Escobar, who died aged 44, barefoot, bloated and riddled with bullets on a rooftop in Medellin. Most do not rise that high in the drugs trade, though, nor live that long to tell the tale. We receive constant reports from the Mexican attorney general's office of supposed lieutenants and middle-ranking soldiers from gangs like the Sinaloa Cartel, the Gulf Cartel and Los Zetas who have been murdered by their enemies or killed in shoot-outs with the authorities.

They are more often boys than men. Twenty or 22 years old, their hands tied behind their backs, a bullet to the head, dumped on the roadside. A final adios to an all-too-brief life which brought them fleeting riches, cars and women. By his industry's standards, then, Heriberto Lazcano was a veteran. He was my age, born in 1975, and over this past year, covering the twists and turns of his murderous and violent organisation, I have often thought of that fact - and wondered what took a supposedly loyal Mexican soldier and turned him into the watchword for drug-related terror in his homeland.

The only photo we ever saw of Lazcano alive shows a young man, in his military days, wearing a beige shirt, dark jacket and tie, staring impassively at the camera, revealing nothing of the murderer - "The Executioner", as he would later be nicknamed - that lay within. The photo we saw this week of El Lazca showed him lying dead on a slab. Naked, with his eyes closed, his hairline had receded a little over the years and his mouth looked puffy and damaged. But it seemed to be him sure enough. Mind you, the Mexican authorities were slow in officially confirming the death.

When the first reports started to come in late one night that, perhaps, the head of Los Zetas had been killed, it did not come as any huge surprise. The organisation has been tearing itself apart for months now, as one faction appears to be telling the authorities where to find their former comrades. The marines said they were waiting for DNA evidence on Lazcano, conscious, perhaps, of the last time they made a song and dance about a big name, which quickly turned into a PR disaster. Earlier this year, the authorities said they had detained the son of the world's most wanted man, Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman.

The only good drug lord is a dead drug lord...El Chapo: Mexican Drug Lord 'Shot Dead'Friday 22 February 2013 - Guatemalan authorities suspect the head of the Sinaloa drug cartel has been shot dead in a gun battle on the Mexican border.

The world's most powerful drug lord, Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzman, has been killed in a gun battle between drug gangs, Guatemalan authorities suspect. The 58-year-old head of the Sinaloa cartel is thought to have been among the bodies left after the shoot-out in a remote rural area of Peten, in Guatemala. Residents who witnessed the clashes have told authorities that one of the two dead men resembled the Mexican drug baron. Police and soldiers are to search the area in an attempt to locate the scene of the fight on the border with Mexico where drug violence has increased.

Joaquín Archivaldo Guzman Loera, also known as 'Shorty Guzman' because of his 5ft6in height, is one of America's most wanted criminals. He has been the most powerful drug lord since his rival was captured in 2003 and since 2009 has been named every year by Forbes as one of the worlds most powerful people with an estimated fortune of $1bn. Last week he was named Chicago's Public Enemy No 1, a name not given to any criminal since Al Capone. JR Davis, president of the Chicago Crime Commission, said: "Not since the Chicago Crime Commission's first Public Enemy No. 1 has any criminal deserved this title more than Joaquín Guzman."

Guzman has a fortune estimated at $1bn

Chicago is one of the Sinaloa's most important cities, both as a place to sell drugs but also as a hub to distribute them across the US. The US sees him as such a threat that it has put a $5m reward for information leading to his capture. The Drug Enforcement Agency believe he has surpassed the infamous drug lord of the 1980s, Pablo Escobar, in terms of both his notoriety and the scale of his operation. He has been in hiding since escaping from a Mexican prison in a laundry cart in 2001.

Interior Minister Mauricio Lopez Bonilla said that police and soldiers would begin searching the area on foot and in the air at first light today. However, the authorities have stressed they had only received reports of the battle from local people. Government spokesman Francisco Cuevas told Guatevision Television that two drug gangs had clashed in Peten. "We have to wait for all the technical information in order to determine if, in fact, one of the dead is of Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzman," Cuevas said.

Mexican security forces murdered dozens in the name of drug wars, HRW saysFebruary 21, 2013 - Human Rights Watch called disappearances in Mexico "the most severe crisis of enforced disappearances in Latin America in decades."

Mexican security forces abducted and murdered dozens of people over the past six years in the name of the drug wars on cartels, according to Human Rights Watch. Further, the US-based rights group said in a report, Mexico has failed to properly investigate human rights abuses committed by its own security forces. Human Rights Watch presented its report to the administration of Mexicos new president, Enrique Pena Nieto.

The group  describing what it called "the most severe crisis of enforced disappearances in Latin America in decades"  said that while inquiring into 249 missing persons cases, it found credible evidence that soldiers or police participated in 149 of them. Victims included husbands and fathers who went out for groceries and never came back, while others were dragged from their homes by uniformed men in the middle of the night. Many were seen being forced into military trucks and police vehicles.

The disappearances all occurred during the term of former President Felipe Calderon, whose administration the group blames for ignoring the mounting problem and failing to take steps to address it. According to the BBC, about 70,000 people are believed to have been killed in organized crime-related deaths in Mexico since December 2006, when Calderon declared war on the country's powerful drug cartels. The US has threatened to withhold millions of dollars in security aid to Mexico in recent years over alleged police and military abuses. The Washington Post cited Massachusetts lawmaker Jim McGovern, co-chair of the human rights commission in the House, as saying that he intended to hold hearings on the reports findings.

Cartels dragging their dead off...Drug war death tolls a guess without bodiesMar 26,`13 -- Heavy gunfire echoed along the main thoroughfare and across several neighborhoods in a firefight that lasted for hours, leaving perforated and burned vehicles scattered across the border city.

Social media exploded with reports of dozens dead. Witnesses saw at least 12. But the hours of intense gun battles in Reynosa on March 10 gave way to an official body count the next day of a head-scratching two. The men who handle the city's dead insist the real figure is upward of 35, likely even more than 50. Ask where those bodies are and they avert their eyes and shift in their seats. Cartel members, they say, are retrieving and burying their own casualties. "Physically, there are no bodies," said Ramon Martinez, director of Funerales San Jose in Reynosa, who put the toll at between 40 and 50. "It's very delicate."

If Reynosa is an example, even the government can't count how many are dying from drug violence. The Felipe Calderon government stopped counting in September 2011. Since President Enrique Pena Nieto took office Dec. 1, the government has issued monthly statistics, saying that January killings were down slightly from December, and that February saw the lowest number of killings in 40 months - without providing numbers for the other 39 months. Even officials have trouble settling on a figure. In April, the mayor of a town in Sinaloa state told news media that at least 40 people had died in shootouts between armed men and soldiers. State police later said seven. Local news media said 13.

Mexico City's Reforma newspaper is keeping its own count. It says the killings in Pena Nieto's first 100 days exceed those in the first 100 days of his predecessor, who intensified the country's assault on organized crime. In Reynosa, the fight for territory has caused at least four major gunbattles this month, the result of a split within the Gulf Cartel after the Mexican government made significant blows to its leadership. The biggest was the capture of Gulf capo Jorge Eduardo Costilla Sanchez in September, leaving a power vacuum and the anticipation that the battle would intensify south of the Texas border in northeast Mexico, a region that has seen some of the most horrific violence.

Michael Villarreal, also known as "Gringo Mike," had moved against the man recently appointed by Gulf cartel boss Mario "Pelon" Ramirez Trevino to run the cartel's business in Reynosa, U.S. law enforcement official familiar with the situation said Monday. The local boss heard Villarreal was coming for him and, with Ramirez's support, beat back Villarreal and his men. "They went in to whack him and got whacked themselves," said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and had no independent count of how many people died in the battle.

USAID booted from Bolivia...Bolivia president expels US government aid agencyMay 1,`13 -- President Evo Morales acted on a longtime threat Wednesday and expelled the U.S. Agency for International Development for allegedly seeking to undermine Bolivia's leftist government, and he harangued Washington's top diplomat for calling the Western Hemisphere the "backyard" of the U.S.

Bolivia's ABI state news agency said USAID was "accused of alleged political interference in peasant unions and other social organizations." In the past, Morales has accused the agency of funding groups that opposed his policies, including a lowlands indigenous federation that organized protests against a Morales-backed highway through the TIPNIS rainforest preserve. In 2008, Morales expelled the U.S. ambassador and agents of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for allegedly inciting the opposition. On Wednesday, he said Washington "still has a mentality of domination and submission" in the region. "They surely still think they can manipulate here politically and economically," Morales said. "That belongs to the past."

While Morales did not provide evidence of alleged USAID meddling, funds channeled through it have been used in Bolivia and its leftist ally Venezuela to support organizations deemed a threat by those governments. But there is not much aid left to cut. As U.S.-Bolivian relations soured and Washington canceled trade preferences, total U.S. foreign aid to the poor, landlocked South American nation has dropped from $100 million in 2008 to $28 million last year. Amid mutual distrust on drug war politics, U.S. counter-narcotics and security aid are on track to all but disappear in the coming fiscal year for Bolivia, a cocaine-producing country along with Colombia and Peru.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell called Morales' allegations "baseless" and said the purpose of USAID programs in Bolivia has been, since they began in 1964, "to help the Bolivian government improve the lives of ordinary Bolivians" in full coordination with its agencies. "The current Bolivia portfolio consists of health and environment efforts and the overall size and scope of the mission is a shadow of what it once was," said Mark Lopes, USAID's deputy assistant administrator for Latin America and the Caribbean.

An agency statement said the expulsion means the end of programs that have helped tens of thousands of Bolivians, particularly children and new mothers in underserved rural areas who have benefited from health, nutrition, immunization and reproductive services. Analyst Kathryn Ledebur of the nonprofit Andean Information Network in Bolivia was not surprised by the expulsion, but by the fact that Morales took so long to do it after repeated threats, which she believes diminishes its political impact.

US protests against Bolivia's decision to expel USAID1 May 2013 - The US has expressed regret at Bolivia's decision to expel America's development agency, rejecting allegations made by President Evo Morales as "baseless".

A US official said the move against the US Agency for International Development (USAID) "harms the Bolivian people". In a May Day address, Mr Morales accused USAID of seeking to "conspire against" Bolivia. He linked the expulsion to a recent comment by the US secretary of state. But US state department spokesman Patrick Ventrell defended USAID's work in Bolivia. "We think the programmes have been positive for the Bolivian people, and fully co-ordinated with the Bolivian government and appropriate agencies under their own national development plan," he said. USAID said it deeply regretted Mr Morales' decision. "Those who will be most hurt by the Bolivian government's decision are the Bolivian citizens who have benefited from our collaborative work on education, agriculture, health, alternative development, and the environment," it said in a statement.

'US backyard'

USAID has been working in Bolivia for almost five decades, and had a budget of $52.1m (£33.4m) for the country in 2010, according to its website. It cites as its main aims the strengthening of Bolivia's health system and the provision of "equal access to health care by eliminating social exclusion", as well as improving "the livelihoods of economically and socially disadvantaged people by increasing income and managing natural resources". On previous May Days, Mr Morales had announced the nationalisation of key industries, such as hydroelectric power and the electricity grid. Speaking at a rally in La Paz on Wednesday, Mr Morales said he "would only nationalise the dignity of the Bolivian people". He said there was "no lack of US institutions which continue to conspire against our people and especially the national government, which is why we're going to take the opportunity to announce on this May Day that we've decided to expel USAID".

He then turned to his Foreign Minister, David Choquehuanca, and asked him to inform the US embassy of his decision. The president also linked the expulsion to a recent remark by US Secretary of State John Kerry, who referred to Latin America as "the backyard" of the US. Mr Kerry made the remark as he tried to persuade US Congressmen of the importance of the region, telling them that "the Western Hemisphere is our backyard. It's critical to us." Bolivia's ABI state news agency reported that USAID was "accused of alleged political interference in peasant unions and other social organisations". Mr Morales has threatened USAID with expulsion in the past, saying that its programmes have "political rather than social" ends. He has also accused it of "manipulating" and "using" union leaders.

Mr Morales, who heads his country's union of coca growers, has been critical in the past of US counter-narcotic programmes in Bolivia, repeatedly stating that the fight against drugs is driven by geopolitical interests. In 2008, Mr Morales expelled the US ambassador and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for allegedly conspiring against his government. Mr Morales became Bolivia's first indigenous president in 2005. He was re-elected by a landslide in 2009, but has since faced protests from indigenous communities angered by the construction of a major road through their territory, and by police and army officers demanding better pay.

Granny says, "Dat's right - amnesty fer illegals is against the law...Gang of 8 Immigration Bill Destroys the Rule of LawMay 14, 2013  Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said immigration reform being considered in the Senate destroys the rule of law by granting amnesty to illegal aliens.

It destroys the rule of law, King said at a Tuesday press conference outside Capitol Hill. And the rule of law is an essential pillar of American exceptionalism, many people come here because we have equal justice under the law. If we reward people who break the law, theyre unlikely to raise their children to respect it, he said. The rule of law, at least with regard to immigration, would be destroyed. And the promise that the law would be enforced from this point forward? I dont know how we can listen to that with a straight face, King said.

The Gang of Eight bill, brought forth by a bipartisan group of Senators, including Florida Republican Marco Rubio, is currently in mark-up in the Judiciary Committee. The bill (S. 744) would give a pathway to citizenship for an estimated 11 million illegal immigrants. It also requires the Department of Homeland Security to secure the border within five yearsbut if not, the legislation will set up a commission to address the issue. King and other House Republicans said on Monday that they offered another viewpoint from Republicans who believe amnesty is necessary for the GOP following the 2012 election. He said the bill is being stampeded without enough scrutiny. The people on the other side of the aisle, they want amnesty for a number of reasons, the biggest one its a big political boost for them, King said. I dont understand why Republicans think its a good idea, but somehow theyve bought into this idea.

He also said the bill is a terrible idea from an economic perspective. At no stage in their lives does the universe of those who would receive amnesty make a net financial contribution to this country, King said. At no stage. Not a single year. A member of the House Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security, King cited the Heritage Foundations recent report by Robert Rector and Jason Richwine that found granting amnesty to illegal immigrants would add $6.3 trillion to the federal deficit and $9.4 trillion in government benefits to the newly minted citizens.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) has also warned that the bill gives Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano virtually unlimited discretion to waiver prohibitions on obtaining legal status, such as criminal activity or previous deportation. The big question I would pose out there is, why? King said. Why is that 844-page bill, why is it good for America and Americans? I cant get that answer on why its good for us, he said.

Police have detained a drug cartel operator in northern Mexico suspected of being responsible for the killing of more than 350 people found in 23 clandestine graves, authorities said Thursday. Mario Nunez Meza, 39, was captured on Wednesday in Ciudad Juarez, which borders Texas, without a shot being fired, federal security spokesman Eduardo Sanchez told a news conference.

Sanchez said Nunez is a "close collaborator" of Mexico's most wanted man, Sinaloa cartel kingpin Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman. Nunez played a key role in the wave of violence that has plagued the northern states of Chihuahua and Durango in recent years and is "likely responsible for the murder of more than 350 people found in 23 clandestine graves," Sanchez said.

He is also wanted for his alleged role in drug trafficking, kidnapping and money laundering. With his arrest, the authorities have now captured 63 of the country's 122 most wanted and "most dangerous" criminals, Sanchez said. When authorities discovered mass graves in Durango last year, authorities linked the violence to battles between rival factions within the Sinaloa crime syndicate and the arrival of the Zetas cartels, a group founded by military deserters.

The states of Durango, Chihuahua and Sinaloa share a region known as "The Gold Triangle" for its extensive fields of marijuana and heroin-producing poppies, drugs that are then shipped to the United States. Ciudad Juarez was once considered the world's murder capital as the Sinaloa and Juarez cartels fought for control of the lucrative drug trafficking route, but the homicide rate has been dropping there since hitting a peak of 3,116 deaths in 2010.

Useful Searches

About USMessageBoard.com

USMessageBoard.com was founded in 2003 with the intent of allowing all voices to be heard. With a wildly diverse community from all sides of the political spectrum, USMessageBoard.com continues to build on that tradition. We welcome everyone despite political and/or religious beliefs, and we continue to encourage the right to free speech.

Come on in and join the discussion. Thank you for stopping by USMessageBoard.com!